Is Google+ better for photographers?

I've been playing with Google+ the past couple weeks, and my conclusion is this: Yes. If photographers had to chose between sharing images on Google, Facebook, or Twitter, Google is the standout.

Two aspects of Google's new social media network improve on the earlier sites, at least from the perspective of image-sharing:

Most importantly, images look fantastic. The compression algorithms are kind, the pixel dimensions aren't automatically resized, the pages and galleries are elegant, and the upload interface is simple.

The hashtag feature, borrowed from Twitter, allows like-minded photographers to effortlessly find each other's work. I'm now following some great artists I don't think I'd have heard about otherwise.

Of course, if Google+ keeps improving their photography interface, they may someday be nearly as useful as Flickr.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Alex Wild

Alex Wild is Curator of Entomology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studies the evolutionary history of ants. In 2003 he founded a photography business as an aesthetic complement to his scientific work, and his natural history photographs appear in numerous museums, books and media outlets.

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